


The Best Revenge

by Dragontrill



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Original Character(s), POV Outsider, dramatic use of puppies, no mary sue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-07
Updated: 2014-09-07
Packaged: 2018-02-16 12:26:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2269656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragontrill/pseuds/Dragontrill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the fall of HYDRA, there are a lot of people on trial. What happens to the harmless ones who just did their job and never hurt anyone?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Best Revenge

"We don't have anything to worry about," Kevin Davis whispered to Nicola Truman. "We're not soldiers. We never carried guns, we never hurt anybody at all. We're just low level technicians, we're nobody."

Nicola bit her lip. "It doesn't feel like they're treating us as nobodies," she said in return. "They're throwing the book at everybody."

"They won't be too hard on us. You think they'll even care about the two of us when they have strike teams to worry about? Those guys are the murderers. Remember, we never hurt anyone."

"Never," Nicola repeated fervently, eyes closed and cuffed hands trembling in her lap.

The two of them sat on hard, plastic chairs along the wall of a wide corridor, waiting for their turn with the prosecutor who'd interview them and decide their fate. To be released - not likely. Nobody was getting out of here without some sort of trial - to be charged with any number of trumped up crimes, the number of which they were sure was dependent upon the time of day and the mood of the lawyers, or to be tossed into one of the public trials, where they'd be made an example of under the scrutiny of the entire world. Already the death sentence had been handed down a dozen times in those trials, but always for the killers, for the men and women in charge. Not for anyone as forgettable as them.

Guards armed with automatic rifles stood along the opposite wall and glared at them, as if there were anywhere for any of them to go, chained and cowed as they were. All of them were techs, administrators. Screw turners and paper pushers. Just regular people doing their regular jobs. 

Someone came out of the office at the end of the corridor, shouting for the next group, and the line shuffled downwards, moving a few chairs up before sitting again. No one dared to stand in the face of the military guards. Nicola was afraid to even ask to go and pee.

"We just have to be true to ourselves and what we believe in," Kevin continued, probably to reassure himself as much as her. Nicola had worked with him for five years and never seen him so nervous. He was normally a quiet, gentle man, always ready to make the coffee or go to pick up donuts for everyone, always asking how people were doing. He was nice. 

"Yes," she agreed and felt a bit like a parrot repeating words back to him. She was just so afraid. When they'd first been exposed, she'd hoped that she'd be overlooked. As the weeks passed, she'd thought she had been and been grateful for it. She didn't know how to run, had no idea how to live off the grid and out from under suspicion. She hadn't known how to do anything other than stay in her condo and watch the news, wondering what she was going to do now that her job was pretty literally blown up and everything they'd been working for gone. 

Eventually, the so-called authorities dug deeply enough in the personnel files to get names such as hers. They hadn't even needed to send the SWAT team they did. Nicola surrendered immediately and was dragged away in handcuffs for everyone in the complex to see. Even if she was released, she could never go back there. The looks in her neighbours' eyes had been chilling. 

Hours passed, Nicola's bladder growing heavier until it was all she could think of. Finally she couldn't stand it anymore and had to raise her hands, forced to gesture with both of them since they were locked together. A hard-eyed corporal glared at her, his face shadowed by his helmet.

"What?"

Nicola felt like cringing into herself. "I need to use the ladies' room," she said. 

"Hold it," he told her.

"I have been," she whimpered. If she pissed herself, everyone would laugh at her. Wasn't this humiliating enough without any extra shame being piled on top? She was no mastermind. She had no information she could even give them. They knew that from the first dozen interrogations she'd gone through. She literally knew nothing of use other than the names of the people she worked with and they already knew them.

"Come on," Kevin said from beside her. "Have a heart. She's got a basic human right here."

The soldier frowned at Kevin, but he pulled out his radio and Nicola smiled at her coworker. "My hero," she teased, though it felt a bit like he was. At least neither of them were alone. He was the only one among these people she knew as more than a face in the cafeteria or the halls.

A few minutes later, a female soldier came to collect Nicola and take her to the closest washroom. By then, Nicola felt she could barely walk and was desperately afraid that she was going to pee herself before she even reached the toilets. It felt like everyone was watching her and knew how much discomfort she was in.

It got even worse when they reached the washroom and the guard pointed her towards the central stall. "Be quick," she said and when Nicola went to close the stall door, the guard shoved it back open and stood there. 

"You're going to watch?" Nicola gasped.

The woman didn't even have the grace to look embarrassed. "I'm making sure that you don't try anything."

"What am I going to try?" Nicola asked. "I'm just a tech! All I do is calibrate equipment!" The guard just crossed her arms, unimpressed.

Nicola felt like crying again, but she had no other choice. She pushed down her pants and sat, and the feeling of emptying her bladder at last would have been wonderful if she didn't have an audience.

Nicola looked up at her. They were about the same age, might even be friends if it weren't for... everything. 

"You don't have to do this," Nicola pleaded, hoping for what? Some sort of human contact instead of the icy cold she received from all of her captors? "I'm a person, a good person. I really am."

"Wash your hands," was all the woman told her. At least she couldn't be bothered to say anything when Nicola had to wipe her eyes as well.

The line had moved quite a bit by the time the guard returned her to her seat in the hall. "Feel better?" Kevin asked as she sat beside him. 

"Yes. But she watched everything. I was so humiliated."

"Bastards," Kevin growled. "They got no respect for anyone. If the situation were reversed, we wouldn't treat them like this."

Nicola sighed. There was no point to thinking that way. They'd lost. 

Finally, they reached the head of the line and their names were called. The man with the clipboard didn't just use their names, he called them by the personnel numbers as well, and that gave Nicola a bit of hope. They did know everything about them. Using those numbers proved they did. They'd see they they were nobodies in the great scheme of things. There'd be jail time, Nicola had no doubt of that - everyone down to the janitors was being charged - but they'd be in one of the private mass trials. Go to a minimum security prison, maybe get time off for good behaviour. No public trials, no Guantanemo Bay, no death penalty. No being made an example of.

The office they were led to was simple, stripped of everything but a file cabinet, a desk, more of the plastic chairs from the hall, a video screen, and a lawyer who looked as cold-eyed as the guard in the corner. There was nothing even one of the strike teams could use effectively as a weapon. For Nicola and Kevin, it was all overkill in the extreme and made her afraid all over again.

Nicola and Kevin sat in the hard chairs in front of the desk. The lawyer behind it had a much more comfortable chair, one with a high back made of leather. She had two thin files in front of her and skimmed through them both before she looked at the two of them, her hands folded on top of them. It was an intimidation technique, Nicola told herself. It was also working really well. Her entire life would be decided in this room. Not in the trials, but right here.

"Nicola Truman and Kevin Davis," the lawyer said. "Level One technicians for HYDRA, stationed in Washington DC for the last two years. Prior to that, in Dallas Texas, before that in a lot of places. You've worked together for five years. Both of you have been in HYDRA for over twenty. You both also worked directly for HYDRA. No undercover work. That sounds right to you?"

Why was she asking them if she had their files right in front of her? She hadn't even introduced herself. 

"Yeah," Kevin said. "I mean yes. Ma'am." Her expression didn't change. "We just followed orders."

"Following orders hasn't been considered to be a legal excuse since the Nuremberg War Trials," the lawyer informed him.

Nicola started to cry. "We never hurt anyone. We just worked on machines, that's it. We're not... we're not War criminals!"

The lawyer lifted a cool eyebrow. "You think you should be pardoned?" she asked.

This was their chance. "Yes!" Nicola pleaded. "We never hurt any, we never did any undercover work. We were mechanics, that's it. We'll sign whatever you want, do whatever you want. Just... just let us go!"

The lawyer leaned back in her chair. "In all of HYDRA, there has been exactly one person given a full, unconditional pardon for his actions," she said. "I don't see that happening again."

"Who got that?" Kevin asked, sounding a bit strangled. Nicola was stunned as well. Who did he have to betray? Even if she had anything worth selling, she didn't know if she had that hard core of a betrayer inside of her to give up on everything HYDRA stood for.

The lawyer gave them both an amused look. "The 'asset' you people call "The Winter Soldier."

"You've got to be kidding," Kevin managed. Nicola could only stare in shock. The ASSET got off? It was the most dangerous weapon in HYDRA. The only times Nicola had bothered to even think of it since the fall, she'd figured it was either in the possession of whatever element of HYDRA was still free - not that she had any hope it would be used to free the rest of them - or SHIELD had put a bullet in its head. They'd be absolute idiots to do anything less. It shouldn't be given a trial like a human. It certainly shouldn't be pardoned like one.

"Nothing about this is worth kidding about," the lawyer said and lifted a remote, turning on the monitor hanging on the wall. A few pushes of a button brought up a low quality video of a bank vault. There was more than a bit of pixelation to it, but Nicola could still recognize the equipment. She could also see Kevin in the background working on some of the computers while she soldered a broken wire in the Winter Soldier's arm. 

"Both of you worked directly with the Winter Soldier," the lawyer said. "Based on this evidence, your cases are going to be elevated to primary status."

Nicola went utterly cold. That meant they were going on public trial. Their names would be in every paper and news channel. They'd be under threat of the death penalty. They'd be utterly destroyed, made scapegoats for things they'd never done.

"Wait, wait!" Kevin gasped. "You can't do that! You let it go but you're charging us for taking care of it? That's crazy! We're harmless! We're not assassins or killers. We just maintain equipment."

The lawyer regarded them both, an almost bemused expression on her face. "You both keep saying that. You only maintained equipment. You truly believe that?"

"Well, yeah," Kevin said, leaning back in his chair and shooting Nicola a puzzled look. He turned back to the lawyer. "Wait, you don't think the Asset is a person, do you?"

"It isn't," Nicola pleaded. If they could just make this woman understand what it was they'd pardoned, they could get their trial level dropped. They didn't know. They weren't HYDRA. They had the Asset's file and it was obvious they didn't understand.

The lawyer turned her face towards Nicola, who gestured with her cuffed hands at the monitor. "Look at it. It's not a person. It never has been. It has no feelings. It doesn't feel pain. I know it LOOKS kind of human, but it's not. It's just meat with metal parts. A reanimated zombie. It's a thing! It always has been and nothing's going to change that!"

"Nothing?" the lawyer repeated and glanced past them. Nicola realized she was trading glances with the guard and looked back at him. He looked incredibly disgusted.

"You're been in holding," the lawyer said and now her professional tone was wholly patronizing. "You haven't seen much of social media lately." She worked the remote for a moment and the You Tube site came up on the screen. Another moment and a video loaded. Once it started to play, the office was filled with the sound of barking dogs. 

The camera swung around a comfortable looking room with children's drawings on the wall and plush, chewed on furniture before it focused on a tall blond man wearing a t-shirt and jeans. Nicola sucked in a breath. She didn't need to see him in uniform to recognize Captain America.

Steve glared at the camera. "Tony, what are you doing?"

"Recording the moment! Gotta have it on film."

"And what do you plan to do with it?"

"Put it on You Tube, what else?"

"Yeah, right," Steve replied, obviously not believing him as he walked to the right of the screen. The camera followed him and Nicola sucked in a breath echoed by Kevin beside her.

The Winter Soldier stood there. Someone had dressed it in a t-shirt and sweatpants and its long hair was tied back in a ponytail, but its face was as blank as Nicola had ever seen it, waiting for its next order. 

"Hey, Buck," Steve said to it and Nicola gasped again as the Soldier actually tracked him with its eyes. "We got something for you. I think you'll like it. Do you want to see?"

The Soldier said nothing. In all the years Nicola worked on it, it only spoke a handful of times. 

"Is this some sort of joke?" Kevin demanded. 

"No," the lawyer said. "This was taken two weeks after Sergeant Barnes was liberated from HYDRA control."

"Giving it a name and dressing it up won't change what it is!" Kevin snapped.

On the video, Tony was laughing about something. "Let's do this! Release the hounds!"

Suddenly, puppies were running into the room. A dozen fluffy gold and chocolate Labradors running on too big paws to jump up around the two people and the Asset. Steve laughed and hunched down to let them reach his face with their tongues.

This was stupid, Nicola thought. The Asset wasn't going to react to a bunch of dogs.

The Asset looked down at the puppies and after a long moment, something in its face changed. Blankness became confusion chased by wonder and it dropped to its knees, letting the eager puppies swarm over it.

By the end of the video, it was on its back and laughing, covered by a squirming blanket of puppy love while Captain America grinned at it.

The lawyer shut off the video. "Two weeks," she repeated. "Two weeks away from HYDRA and Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes was happy to be around puppies. No mission, no orders. Just simple human play. He's talking to therapists now, regaining his memories and his past. That's why he's received a pardon and why the two of you, and every single person to ever work in that room are going on public trial. For helping keep a prisoner of war tortured to silence for over seventy years. There will be no plea-bargaining or downgrading of your case. If you aren't executed, you'll spend the rest of your lives in a high security prison and the entire time you do, you'll receive better treatment than he did. You never maintained a machine. You tortured a man." She waved a hand. "I'm done. Take them to processing."

"Yes, ma'am, Ms Walters." The lawyer didn't even watch as the two of them were dragged out, instead pulling the files for her next interviewees.

Kevin moved like he was in shock. Nicola couldn't stop crying. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair! None of it was their fault. How could it be? How could they have known? They thought he was a machine, not a person. Not a man. He wasn't supposed to be a man.

She called him 'he' in her thoughts, not 'it.' Realizing that just made Nicola cry harder and it was a very long time before she stopped.

**Author's Note:**

> The best revenge is living well.
> 
> Yeah, the lawyer was She-Hulk. I almost pity the prisoner who tries to attack her.


End file.
